choes.

The echoes, however, were the only replies he received. Loud as were
his cries, they were not heard either by Caspar or Ossaroo.

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

THE TIBET BEAR.

For full two hours sat Karl, chewing the cud of impatience. As yet the
feeling he experienced was only one of impatience, mingled with a
considerable amount of chagrin at being in such a scrape, and having got
himself into it in so simple a manner. He had no very painful
apprehensions about the result--since he made quite sure that his
companions would come to his relief in the end. They might not find him
that day, or that night, and he might have to remain all night upon the
ledge. This, however, would be no great hardship. He might suffer a
little from want of his supper, and he might have to sleep in the cave,
but what of that to one so inured to hunger, and to sleeping in the open
air, as he was? Even had there been no shelter, he could have stretched
himself along the ledge, and slept that way without much minding it.
Certainly in the morning the others would be after him, his shouts would
guide them to the spot, and then it would be all right again.

Such was the reasoning of Karl, and therefore, knowing that he had but
little to fear, he was not acutely anxious.

While he was thus comfortably communing with himself, however, his eyes
rested upon an object that rendered him anxious enough--nay, more than
anxious--badly frightened, would be nearer the words.

His ears first guided him to this new cause of alarm. While sitting on
the ledge, and not saying a word, he heard a sound that resembled the
snort of a jackass, just as one commences to bray.

There were some bushes growing at no great distance from the bottom of
the cliff, and it was from the midst of these bushes the sound appeared
to proceed.

After hearing the snort, Karl kept both eyes and ears acutely bent--the
former fixed upon the bushes; and in a minute after, the sound was
repeated, though he did not see the creature that uttered it. He saw,
however, by the motion of the twigs, that something was passing through
the thicket; and the loud snapping of dead sticks, and crackling of
branches, proved that it was an animal of great weight and dimensions.

Karl was not long in doubt as to the dimensions; for the instant after
he beheld the body of a large beast emerging from the thicket, and
moving out into the open ground.

It required no skill to tell wha